It's late to be getting to solutions, but now, perhaps, we're finally ready to take on the challenge.

Bill McKibben lays out how dire the picture really is in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone:
We’ve already warmed the planet by 0.8 degrees centigrade, and the
weather is getting frightening. At the Copenhagen Climate Conference, the one thing
the world agreed on is that we must stay within a 2-degree centigrade
heat increase—although climatologist Jim Hansen has called even that level of increase a
recipe for disaster. And if current trends continue, we're headed for much more global heating. But powerful oil, gas, and coal companies have blocked needed action. With billions in profits, they have plenty of money to channel to political campaigns, climate-denying think tanks, and right-wing media. Together, these groups have
prevented progress.

If we had acted 20 or 30 years ago, when the alarm bells were first
sounded, the transition to a climate safe world could have been more gradual and less disruptive,
and we could have saved many more coral reefs, forests, glaciers, and
species.

The Greatest Generation was able to bring together a whole society
when the Nazi invasion of Europe and the bombing of Pearl Harbor proved
to be threats that couldn’t be ignored. It will take that level of mobilization, built on a deep patriotism, to
build and sustain the effort to avert catastrophe.

Now, time is short.

Although there is already enough extra carbon in the atmosphere to make
major climate change inevitable, there is still a big difference
between the sort of change that brings increased droughts, storms,
temperature extremes, and sea level rises, and a change that
extinguishes life on Earth. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking
is among those who say that runaway climate change could transform the planet into one like Venus, on which human life is impossible.

There is no greater emergency than this. Is an effective response
beyond us? There are lots of reasons to think so. Dirty Energy has
blocked action, and there’s every reason to believe they will continue to do so. International collaboration is tough. And given
the choice, most of us would prefer to hold on to creature comforts as
long as possible, and to stay in denial.

But the steps needed to avert catastrophe are, in fact, well within our
capability as imaginative, hard-working people. And around the world,
cities, towns, tribes, responsible businesses, and activists are making
change. But we’ll have to scale it up, and quickly.

The Greatest Generation was able to come together as a whole society when the Nazi invasion of Europe and the bombing of Pearl Harbor proved
to be threats that couldn’t be ignored. Car factories were repurposed for tank production. Rubber and metals were recycled. Everyone planted victory
gardens. Many went off to war.

It will take that level of mobilization, built on a deep patriotism, to
build and sustain the effort to avert catastrophe. It will mean a willingness to put our
farmers, our coastal cities, our children’s food supply, everyone’s
access to sufficient water, and the survival of fisheries ahead of the
profits and power of Dirty Energy. It is the task that should define
our times and could put each of us to work.

What will it take? Four years ago, YES! did a comprehensive study of
what will be needed to turn around the climate crisis. The big takeaways
are these:

1. We need to reorient our food system, which contributes a surprising
amount to the climate problem through long-distance transport of foods,
climate-killing agricultural chemicals, and meat raising practices that
use massive amounts of grain and lead to deforestation. The good news
is that a new, locally based food system with grass-fed meat and
dairy and fresher, more wholesome fruits and vegetables is already
blossoming. And young people across the nation are at the forefront,
with many itching to make farming their livelihoods.

We should end taxpayer subsidies
for fossil fuels. The right pricing will send a strong market signal
that will spur innovation and smart, low-carbon redevelopment.

2. We need to quit subsidizing dirty fuels and put a price on carbon.
We should tax carbon, as former Reagan cabinet member George Shultz now recommends. Or we could
auction off the right to emit a limited amount of carbon. In either
case, we could return the proceeds to all Americans equally. After all,
the atmosphere belongs to all of us. Polluters should pay, rather than using our air as a dump for free. And we should end taxpayer subsidies
for fossil fuels. The right pricing for carbon pollution will send a strong market signal
that will spur innovation and smart, low-carbon redevelopment.

3. We need to rethink how we build towns and cities, and how we get
around. The time for car-dependent, sprawling suburbs is over.
Europeans use a fraction of the gas we use because cities and towns are
compact, public transportation is efficient, and walking and bicycling are
well supported and safe. Europeans are also far less likely to be obese
and unhealthy. There is a connection. With houses and shopping malls
sitting abandoned, now is the time to redevelop a more compact,
pedestrian-friendly way of life: neighborhood shops, and a local
food and energy supply.

4. We need to reinvent energy. In just a few decades, we’ve burned through millions of
years of the compressed dinosaur bones and ancient plant life that
make up fossil fuels. Not only is this harming the stability of the atmosphere, but it requires increasingly
dangerous and expensive processes to extract the last reserves—like
removing entire mountain tops in Appalachia, extracting oil from dirty tar
sands in Alberta, deep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and drilling in
the Arctic. And then there’s the military cost of getting U.S. access
to petroleum deposits in other countries.

Fortunately, smart innovations in energy efficiency and renewable technologies are already available. To really get things rolling—and to put unemployed Americans to work
and jump-start a more sustainable economy—we should launch a World War II-level mobilization to weatherize buildings, switch to energy-efficient
manufacturing, build mass transit, and install windmills and solar
energy generation. We should shift all government purchasing to the
most energy-efficient technologies and rapidly phase out government
purchases of any transport that uses fossil fuels. We should set
targets for this transition away from coal and natural gas for all
electric utilities. Those that don’t comply should be taken over by the
people and become public utilities—that’s what the voters of Boulder, Colorado, did last year.

5. We need to block dirty energy extraction,
transportation, and export. We should say no to the export of
Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coal to China, as folks in the Northwest
are doing. We need to keep saying no to the KXL Pipeline over our
precious (and increasingly endangered) Ogallala Aquifer—the KXL is
designed as a conduit to export dirty tar sands oil to China. We should
say no to drilling in the Arctic. And while we’re at it, we should see
that any investment money we control – university endowments, state
pension funds, etc.—drop all investments in Dirty Energy companies until they switch to clean energy.

In his speech at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. said, “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of
now. … We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but
time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones
and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic
words, 'Too late.'"

By the time our children and their children confront extreme heat
and terrifying storms, it might well be too late. It isn’t too late for
us to act, though. We can still avert what could be a
disastrous climate crisis. There are no excuses for delay.

Interested?

Unfortunately, so is the planet.

Tired of waiting for their leaders to ban the destructive drilling
practice, citizens passed their own resolution—and took over the
Statehouse to make it heard.

Speaking at Power Shift 2011, activist Tim DeChristopher says it's high
time the environmental movement stop just making statements—and start
taking a stand.

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Sarah van Gelder wrote this article for YES! Magazine,
a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with
practical actions. Sarah is co-founder and executive editor of YES!.